This invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for testing of complex telecommunication systems and, more particularly, for automated testing of complex telecommunication systems.
In the manufacture, design and operation of complex telecommunication systems equipment, such as a central office telephone switch having connections to as many as 100,000 customer telephone lines plus thousands of trunk connections to other switches (e.g., the 5ESS.RTM. Switch as described at http://www.lucent.com/netsys/5ESS/5esswtch.html, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference), it is necessary to test the system to determine whether it is operating correctly under various operating test conditions. A complex test environment is required to test such a system, including test equipment to stress the capacity limits and verify that calls and maintenance activities work correctly even under high system load.
The present techniques for testing complex telecommunication systems employ testing software that is designed to emulate the tests that previously had been performed manually by testing personnel. These so-called automated tests are performed under control of an operator of a test computer. The operator must remain in attendance to respond to problems encountered in performing any of the automated tests and to take steps to cause the telecommunication system to recover from any failures of the system caused by the tests being performed. For example, if the automated test requires a particular system resource, such as a 2-way trunk that uses CCITT7 signaling, that is not operational or otherwise not available for use during the test, the test operator must then look for and select an alternative resource to perform the test. Likewise, if the system fails, the test operator must return the system to a predetermined state in order for the testing to continue.
The need for the attendance of test operators, especially during third work shifts and on weekends, substantially adds to the costs of testing. The present inventors have determined that this need for attendance has been caused, at least in part, by the known automated testing systems attempting to replicate the previously used manual tests. They have thereby limited the automated tests to a model of only what a manual tester could do and how a manual test would be performed.
Accordingly, these known systems have disadvantageously not been provided with the features the inventors believe is required to enable the production and operation of fully automated test systems, or unattended, automated test systems that do not require a test operator in attendance to overcome the conventional testing problems noted above.